The Fight to Keep Big Money out of Uni Motorcycle Racing Has its Just Rewards

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Just when you thought the world of drag racing could get no weirder, UniMotorcycle Dirt Drag Racing comes along. It is the oddest thing in motorsports. It is fun though. It resembles some odd mechanical bull accident, but it works. The Unimotorcycles are boxy. They have skids on the front and a combination of skids and wheelie bars on the back. They are unicycles even though they have a motor, and that means they have only one tire.

UniMortocycle Drag Racing Has Been Around Since 1988

You have to ride them in such a way as to balance them from all directions. If you lose the front to rear balance, and the front skids touch down you are disqualified. The dirt drag track is 100 feet in length, and some of the best racers are hitting the finish line doing 60 MPH. A good race time is under three seconds. The record for Class A is 2.88 seconds.

So let’s paint that scene again. You have a unimotorcycle. It is probably homemade since this is a considered a “junkyard sport.” It appears in the shape of a mechanical bull with a single wheel. You have to get on it and race it down a 100 foot dirt track at speeds of up to or more than 60 MPH. And… you are not the only one doing this. In fact, its a growing sport. It is growing so fact that there are now different classes of racers. It is not just an American Sport, its spread to Europe. Europe has teams from the UK, Holland, Hungary, Russia, Portugal, Belgium and Switzerland. There is a Wold Championship that is held periodically, and national teams compete for the title.

Who Comes Up With These Things?

In this case it was an American who is fondly called “Sidecar Willie.” It is a sport that is designed to keep the craft of designing, building, and racing your contraption alive. Junkyard Sport means just that. You find it; you rebuild it, and you turn it into something you love. The riders and racers are affectionately referred to as Loonies and for the obvious reason. Sidecar Willie is a veteran of drag racing. He came up with this idea because it was the only thing he had not tried in drag racing. Currently, they are fighting to keep big-money out of UniMotorcycle racing. The purity of the sport is something that draws both racers and spectators.

Classes of Loonies

Class A – Engine size 750cc to unlimited.

Class B – Engine size 400 -749cc

Class C – Engine size 200cc – 399cc

Class D – Engine size 0cc to 199cc

Class E – Electric Engines

Class F – Rocket Class and is used only for exhibition.

Odd Rules: All bikes must have a dead-mans switch for when you are thrown. Notice it did not say “if you are thrown.” All engines must be stock motors that are over five years old and said engine must be utilized in the same purpose for which it was manufactured. Breaks and Steering are optional.

The sport is oddly fun and wildly entertaining. It has rules that are designed to keep it pure and the loonies make the sport a worthy battleground. Check out some of these great clips of the 1%’ers sharing taking their creatively wild rigs to the max. Be it dirt, grass, or even ice. The one thing that each of these races share, is the pure unadulterated love for all things loud and fast!Sources: ( 1 | 2 )